Gilroy July 4th Celebration

2012.07.04

Day Seventy. Happy birthday America! Wanted to go up to San Francisco to see their show, but didn't feel like fighting the crowds, so we wandered over to Gilroy to see how their show went. While it certainly wasn't the City of Annapolis production I saw so many times in my childhood, the fireworks were as fun as always ... topped only by the enjoyment of the local Hispanic family we sat next to. They started off with the usual ooooos and ahhhhhhs, then quickly moved on to more Spanish sounding syllables before making it all the way to buuuurrriiiitttttooooo. We enjoyed their enjoyment almost as much as the fireworks themselves. Which, by the way, turned out to be harder to photograph than I originally anticipated. I figured all I had to do was set the camera up for long exposures, point the lens toward the sky, and hit the shutter every now and again ... WRONG. (A) 30 seconds is waaaaaay to long for fireworks. (B) Not every one explodes in the same place. (C) You can't auto-focus on fireworks. And (D) It's really hard not bumping the tripod while laughing about "buuuurrriiiitttttooooo" :) Seriously though, I got to learn what bulb mode was, got good at noting current wind speed and judging the loudness of the launch sounds while attempting to predict how far to the left and how high to aim the lens, focused at what I hoped was infinity, and had to break out the extension cord for the remote shutter release so I could move farther away from the tripod while laughing :)